AIDA HONK KONG

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Putting “Grand” back into opera

Cover Story

Giuseppe Raffa contends opera was always meant to be performed on a grand scale. With Aida, he has effected a rebirth of the art that more than follows his convictions.

SUZANNE MAIO reports

The superlatives have been exhausted, the Sphinx has ceremoniously sailed into Victoria Harbour, builders are busily putting together the sets and seats at the University of Hong Kong’s sports ground in Sandy Bay and rehearsals are under way for the 1,200 cast members.

When the 100 strong symphony orchestra plays the opening bars of Verdi’s Aida on November 8, it is almost guaranteed Hong Kong will have never seen anything like it before – and is likely to again.

The man waving the magic wand around is maestro Giuseppe Raffa, who has not only seen it all before, but has done it all as well. In 1987, he singlehandedly inspired the rebirth of opera when he staged Aida in Giza, Egypt where it had been first performed a century earlier.

Audiences loved it, but some critics sniffed “It’s not art, it’s spectacle” they said. As far as he is concerned, operas are meant to be staged on gigantic scales using the latest technology.

“In the 20^th century, after the death of major impresarios and producers, opera became a museum product – rich people and governments supported it as an art form only because they..

“Verdi was a guy who fought with everyone to reach the highest technological level he could in opera.”

“He was a man who was looking forward to hi-tech, to the development of opera as entertainment. He didn’t write for elitist, sophisticated, cultured people, Raffa said. “So, I thought let’s change all the rules”. And he did.

The Hong Kong production of Aida is budgeted at a whopping $ 50 million. It requires a stage area of 36,000 square feet for 1,200 cast member, a symphony orchestra, a $ 7.8 million specially designed sound system, more than 1,500 costumes, 5,000 props, 200 technicians, 9,000 seats for the audiences and an unspecified number of live animals, possibly including lions, camels and elephants.

“No one imagined it would be this big”, Raffa said. “Even I only imagined, hoped, I could make it 20 percent bigger than normal opera productions…But I knew this had an enormous future”.

In the past two years, 200,000 people in Canada, 120,000 in Australia and 150,000 in Japan have witnessed the Aida spectacular. In Hong Kong up to 27,000 will be accommodated over the three performances – unheard o– in local terms.

Within 48 hours of tickets going on sale here, more than $ 1 million had been snapped up via postal booking – all these in the top prices brackets of $ 2,000 and $ 30,000 for a VIP box seating 12. All this snapped before the principal cats cast member were confirmed – the list now includes sopranos Leona Mitchell and Marie Robinson sharing the title role, Paul Plinska as Ramfis, Bruno Sebastian as Radames, Ruza Baldani as Amneris, Nicola Ghiuselev as the King of Egypt and Michele Porcelli as Aida’s father, the King of Ethiopia.